St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1887-05-22
ADVICE TO GIRLS.
Rose Terry Cooke Speaks Rather
Plainly to Young Women.

l once heard Il lady say to her
daughter, who was pleading to be al
lowed 10 learn round dances:
Nc. That is one thing | never will
allow. Ii you want a young man TO put
his arms round you, bring him home
into the parlor where your father and |
are. | cannot have you embraced be-
fore room full OF people and whirled
round ii 1T that
This was. perhaps. rather q bold state
ment. 4 reduction to first principles, but
il echoed my feeling, writes Rose Terry
Cooke in the COurier-Journal:
..Sir. she's yours. YOU have brushed from the
grape its soft blue;
From the rosebud you've shaken its tremu-
lOus dew;
What you We touched you may take; pretty
walter, adieu.
| do not know who wrote the lines,
but dear. sensible Miss Edgeworth puts
them into the mouth of one of her
heroes.
Do not, either. go out to dine with any
Young man but your brother in the
evening: it may be lawful fer you to do
so. but not eXpedient. DON romp with
Young men; | have heard a party of
young people in the country make as
much rude noise as a herd of colts: pull
ing, Snatching, slapping, chasing each
other; my dear girls, don't. Believe
me, if YOU do not respect yourselves no
person on earth will respectTou; a mod
est, gentle. sweet young girl is the love-
lest thing the Lord ever made; | feel a
sort Of alteration for such girl,
but | have little chance for this
worship. They are as rare as black
swans. | used to see them i'll myyouth,
but they are gone: oh, could but re-
store the "old-fashioned" girl to this
age, what benefactOr | should be to
mankind. How neat was her dress; ;
how simple and cordial her manner.
We thought it dreadful term OF re-
preach to call one affected. Those girls
Obeyed their mothers and fathers, and
really supposed there were some things
in heaven and earth their parents under
stood better than they did; they knew
ness: how TO make bed and a
shirt: if their education did not extend
to classical music, the higher mathe-
MATES and the dead languages, they
were grounded well in the useful
knowledge that is needed every day.
They did not get up i'll prayer-meetingS
and obtrude their opinions or their eX-
perience upon the public. Saint Paul
had not become delusiOn and snare
then: they did not call his indignant
word that lit is shame for women to
speak in the church" the utterances of
IAN old bachelor. = IAN old fOgy;" they
had respect for the Word of God in all
its fullness and detail. All, what wives
and mothers they made.
But now-flaunting about the streets,
their hair all about their eyes like skye
terriers. their figures distorted into the
likeness of nothing in heaven above or
earth beneath, by humps dromedary
would revile, theiryital organs squeezed
into numbness and uSelessness, thrown
out of balance. and therefore out OF
gear, by heels that give them the gait
of equity old men, their heads crowned
with heaps of fuss and feathers" if
they are not making acquaintance with
no Introduction as they promenade the
pavement. or flying round some hall
closely folded to the bosom of a youth
of their own sort, they are lounging at
home in the easy chair that should have
been their tired mothers, pounding out
Gathering marches or tunelesS polkas
on a poor piano; or leading prayer
neutrality-suspicious. not having reached
that height, only offering eXhortation or
petition with the aplomb and self-confi-
dence of Il deacon of the church.